It’s not easy being green. People see you when you try to hide in plain sight. Just stand around like a normal person… look like a normal person… talk like a normal person… don’t use that lexicon full of exotic vocabulary… say simple words… Don’t worry about looking stupid. Stupid people fit in and are easily accepted. But they see through me.
“Hey, Mickey, why do you always look so green? Why are you such a know-it-all?”
Being too smart is a curse. You don’t fit in anywhere. Nobody will talk to you because they don’t understand you. You talk in paragraphs with topic sentences and supporting details. They talk in words and phrases, mostly profanity, and hate-filled words. You understand what they say, but would really rather not understand them.
And I am not a know-it-all. Socrates always said that he knew nothing at all. That’s because nothing that can be known is one hundred percent provable. And I am not as smart as Socrates. So, I must know less than nothing. They made him drink poison for being too smart and teaching kids to be wise guys.
“Mickey, weren’t you a teacher?”
“Um, no…?”
Yes, somewhere near, a mallard or a pintail or a wood duck or a Muscovy duck has his beady little duck eyes trained on the back of my head. I can feel the hatred from afar. And it is invariably a duck with teeth… a full set of Michael-biting dentures sharpened to a .pirahna-like edge
“But, Mickey, phobias like that only happen in the brains of crazy people.”
Yes, mental diseases and traps of thought and overthinking are caused most often in the brains of people who are too smart. Smart people can perceive dangers that stupid people can’t. Sometimes they are real things, real dangers. Sometimes they are not. Keeping your balance on the highwire of daily life over the bottomless pit of bad things that could happen, is hard work. And missteps will happen.
Hide me from spying ducks, my friend, and I will try to tell you in upcoming posts how to learn and what knowledge is really all about.
Catch a Falling Star 